Monthly Archives: December 2016

Cowl-a-bunga!

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This year I knit cowls for Emma, Leah and Doug for Christmas.  Today the sun came out in Vancouver and revealed the city in all of its glory.  We went down to Stanley Park to take some photos and enjoy the day.

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Emma’s cowl is designed by Isabell Kraemer, and is called Copenhagen Calling.  It is a really beautiful pattern and produces a big, lush cowl.

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I knit it with two shades of Triskelion Elmet Aran which I bought at Yarnporium, a lovely event organised by the folks at the Yarn in the City blog.  I was entranced by the Triskelion display, which had a veritable rainbow of gorgeous shades.  The yarn for both Emma’s and Leah’s cowls was purchased from their booth.

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Emma’s cowl is in grey and burgundy; the colours are rich and deep.  The yarn is very wooly and sturdy – it has substance and feels good in the hands while knitting.  I was surprised by how well it bloomed in the wash, producing a lovely, lofty, warm fabric.

I purchased one skein of the grey and two of the burgundy; each skein has 160 meters. The pattern calls for 250 meters of the first colour and 330 of the second.  I adjusted the pattern slightly to make up for my lesser yardage.  I cast on with the grey, using US7 needles, and ribbed for 2.5″.  I knit only 2.5 repeats of the slip-stitch pattern (instead of the called for 4 repeats), which brought me to the end of the grey yarn.

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I made a slight change in the pattern, in that just before starting the lace stitch, I decreased 8 stitches evenly around.  Many of the photos I have seen of this cowl have a very stretched-out lace section and I was hoping to avoid this.  I knit the lace on a US6, and then knit the garter rows with a US5 (as per the pattern).  I think the result is perfect.

Unblocked the cowl measured 44″ x 10.5″. I blocked it out quite a bit to open up the lace – it ended up at 50″ x 11″.  I could not be happier with the pattern or the yarn; the combination of the two is fantastic and looks beautiful on Emma.

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For Leah’s cowl I used the pattern Slip-Zag by Lisa Hannes.  I had wanted to make this cowl for a long time and had always envisaged it in green and purple.  The Triskelion display at Yarnporium had the most stunning array of greens and purples; it drew me in immediately.  There were many beautiful yarns on display at this event, but I found myself unable to walk past their booth.

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I used a DK weight for this cowl, which is knit in Triskelion Dyfnaint DK, in the colours Llyr and Cepheus.  I had initially chosen a more grass green shade, but upon discussion with the booth attendant, I went for this teal. These two were made for each other – the incredible jewel colours become even more vibrant when paired together.

I cast on 260 stitches and used a US6 needle.  The pattern is very intuitive and relaxing. I knit this while on holiday in South Africa and found it a very enjoyable knit.  Like the Elmet Aran, the Dyfnaint blocks beautifully.  It is wonderfully soft and warm.  I will definitely be using these yarns again.

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Doug received his cowl a bit early, and I blogged about it here; the linked page includes the free pattern for the design, which I call the Business Class Cowl.  These photos, with the late afternoon sunshine, really bring out the beautiful colour of the cowl.

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It is knit with Woolfolk Tynd in Darkest Bronze; the sun picks up the bronze shade perfectly.

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It was good to end out the year exploring new yarn companies; I had never used either Woolfolk or Triskelion before.  They both make fantastic yarns and I already have projects in mind for each.

We had a beautiful day in Stanley Park.  This was in many ways a very trying year and it was good to end it with the four of us being silly together on a lovely day.

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I normally end the year with a summary of the year’s knitting.  I will definitely do that, but will likely post it a few days into the New Year.  In the meantime, I wish all of you a healthy and happy New Year, with lots of knitting and with a renewed commitment to compassion, human kindness and a just and democratic society.

Happy New Year from me, Kelly, and from my co-conspirators, Doug, Emma and Leah!

Real sweaters. Real people.

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We are in Vancouver for the holidays.  On Christmas Eve, Doug always cooks a whole salmon.  We are into tradition.  Today we woke up early to go to Granville Island to buy a salmon at the market.  The Granville Island markets are fabulous; if you haven’t been, you should put it on your wish list.  They are also always crowded, a lovely, bustling, market full of happy people, fantastic food, and even more happy people.  This morning, December 23rd, they were especially crowded.  As I was pushing my way through a mass of people, I spotted something:  a woman wearing a hand-knitted hat designed by Kate Davies.

I stopped and asked her “Is that a Kate Davies hat you are wearing?”  “Yes,” she said, “And I am wearing a Kate Davies sweater as well.”  This started a nice conversation with Julie, a fellow Kate Davies fan.  She unzipped her coat to show me her sweater and politely didn’t call me weird when I asked to photograph her for the blog.  Here is Julie, wearing her Bunnet (Stranded) hat from Buachaille: At Home in the Highlands, and her Keith Moon sweater from Yokes.

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Julie pointed out that she had only put in one contrast colour in her Keith Moon, as she was using stash yarn.  I think she looks fantastic and the colour and fit is perfect.  Julie, like me, has joined Kate’s Inspired by Islay club, and is hoping to get Kate’s new book for Christmas this year.  (I know its under my tree, because I ordered it and wrapped it up myself with a “For Kelly” tag.)

Happy holidays everyone!

The continuing saga of Tinder (the cardigan, that is!)

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Thank you to everyone who chimed in with advice on this post regarding the Tinder Cardigan I am knitting for Emma.  It really helps to get good advice and I so appreciate the dialogue I have with readers of this blog.  The title of this post may lead some to the false conclusion that the pattern, Tinder by Jared Flood, is in some way problematic. Not so.  I call it a “saga” merely because of my own ridiculous but funny conversations with Emma which slowed down the beginning of the project, my own rush to finish it before heading to Tucson, which paradoxically led to slowing down the middle of the project, and my indecisions over seams and buttons, which slowed down the end of the project.

Here is an update.  I ripped out the seams in the sleeves:

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Are you surprised?  I imagine that most of you would have predicted this.  Why knit a garment and not do it right the first time (or the second, or the third, or the fourth…..)?

I have yet to sew the seams back up, as I am trying to finish up a wee bit of Christmas knitting first, but I did knit the button band, which turned out so pretty.  It really looks great! (Note that you can see a more accurate representation of the lovely green shade – Bird Book in Shelter – in the last photo of this post.)

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And I did go out and buy another set of buttons:

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I am not convinced these buttons are right either (I think the shade is too light) but my local John Lewis seems to be button-challenged lately and I haven’t had time to seek out an alternate source.  However, I do think these are the proper sized buttons for this cardigan (1″ as opposed to 3/4″).  In the photo below, the metal buttons I originally bought are on the right, the new buttons are in the middle, and on the left are the new buttons turned upside down (the backs are a nice mottled brown).

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This leads me to yet another potential problem.  I knit the button band the requisite 1 1/4″ as shown in the pattern. Now that I am now going to go with 1″ buttons,  I am worried that the button band is too narrow. I am thinking of ripping out the bind-off on the button band and putting in an extra two rows of ribbing (maybe 4). Two steps forward, one step back.

In any case, I will be taking the garment as is to Vancouver and will finish it there by hook or by crook!

I will end this post with a photo of the absolutely gorgeous little ribbon I found for sewing over the seams on the back of the button bands.  I think it is a perfect match, though perhaps a bit cutesy. We will just have to leave it up to Emma as to whether she wants a more sophisticated finish.

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My next post will be from Vancouver! It will likely contain new knitting content.  Happy holidays!

 

Sweet and Tart

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Welcome to another Wearability Wednesday post, in which I re-visit a hand-knitted garment and discuss its wearability.  The garment in question today is the turtleneck which I finished in early February 2015 and blogged here; below is a photo taken just after finishing.

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The pattern, Lightweight Pullover, was designed by Hannah Fettig.  I took much inspiration from Hannah’s design and the many projects on Ravelry.  (This is a very popular design.)   Once I got going, however, I did my own thing as far as the numbers go – increasing and decreasing where needed, and not paying much attention to the pattern specs.   I took minimal notes, which you can find on my Ravelry project page, here.  I did change the waistband and the cuffs to seed stitch, which I think adds much to the look of the garment.

Of all of the hand-knitted garments in my wardrobe, this is probably the one that has been worn the most in the last year.  Partly, this is due to the fact that I knit it after I put on weight.  (I gained about 10 kilos during 2013-14; many of the knits I made before that are temporarily in storage.)  But mostly, its because it is a very serviceable pullover that fits well into my wardrobe and my lifestyle.

I frequently wear it with jeans.  It is easy to throw in a suitcase and thus it has been worn all over the globe in the last two years.  Below, I am wearing it while examining wool fleeces in the basement of a shop in Llandudno (blogged about here).

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I like that it is lightweight; it is knit in fingering weight wool and this makes it easy to wear and to layer.  I used Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in the fabulous colour Tart. Note that the pattern calls for sportweight wool, but after seeing dozens of Lightwieght Pullovers knit in Tosh Merino Light, I decided that it gave really nice drape.

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I also often wear this garment to the office.  It can be quite easily dressed up or down.  Usually, I will pair it with grey or black, as with these grey trousers:

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Or this black pencil skirt:

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These are all great features and means it gets worn a lot.  But, of course, there are some negatives as well.  This is the first garment I knit in Tosh Merino Light, and I find that it pills. A lot:

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While Tart is a gorgeous colour, I have found it to be a little bit less versatile than I originally thought.  I would normally pair a deep wine with black, grey, navy or brown.  In actual fact, I find that it works much better with blacks and greys than with browns and navys.  Here is a shot with navy; I’m not sure it comes through well in the photo, but the grey tones in the yarn cause it to clash just a bit with the navy (I know this is nit-picky, but it does make it less adaptable in my wardrobe).

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I also have concerns about the fit through the shoulders and arms.  I think it is about a good a fit as a raglan can be, but I am starting to think that a set-in shoulder has a much better fit.  And, it is perhaps a bit too tight (alsa, the weight gain!).  But what bothers me most is the slight felting under the arms:

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Surely, I can’t be the only person who sweats?  The only solution I see is a looser fit under the arms; perhaps more length in the armscythe?  (And a bit more width in the bicep?)

The verdict: this is a fabulous and versatile piece in my wardrobe that sees a lot of wear.  If I were to make it again, I think I would try a different yarn (one that would pill less), and I would add a bit of give to the upper arm.  I think I would also do something with the cowl – make it a bit longer or give it more volume, perhaps?

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Now, it is time to watch the Gilmore Girls (I had never even heard of the show before this summer and am now mid-way through season five – no spoilers please) and do some Christmas gift knitting.  Enjoy your Wednesday!

Seams and buttons

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Regular readers will recall that in October I was in a rush to knit the final sleeve of the Tinder cardigan.  This was so that I could wash and block all of the pieces before heading out to Tucson.  The cardigan is for my daughter Emma, who lives in Vancouver, and my other daughter Leah was planning a weekend in Tucson to visit me and her grandparents. My plan was to take all of the freshly blocked pieces of the cardigan (back, two fronts and sleeves) with me, and while there to do ALL of the finishing, so that Leah could take the cardigan back with her to Vancouver and give it to her sister.  I blogged about it here.

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This plan failed.  I did manage to finish knitting the sleeve on time and get the blocking done (just barely).  However, the finishing kicked my butt.  There were a number of reasons for this.  First, I was enjoying spending time with my mom and going for walks, lazing by the pool, etc.  I didn’t want to be knitting like a maniac on my holiday.  (Yes, I know – that’s what holidays are for, you knitters are shouting at me!)  Second, this is a big cardigan.  It is tunic length and made of wool.  Tucson was having a record heat wave that week.  Sitting with a humongous pile of wool on my lap while I painstakingly sewed very long seams in mattress stitch somehow lost its appeal.  I mentioned both of these in my previous post.  There was an additional reason, however, which I have not yet shared: the seams looked terrible.

Let me be more specific.  The raglan seams turned out really good.  The instructions for the raglan edging were excellent, and the mattress stitch seams worked out perfectly. Here is a photo of my mom modelling the sweater so that you can see the shoulder and raglan seaming.  (Only one side of the garment was sewn together at this point.)

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Likewise, the textured pattern stitch of the sweater was easy enough to use the mattress stitch on and the results are not too bad. A good blocking will sort it out.  (One thing I did change in the pattern was to move the decreases and increases farther out towards the side edges of the garments.  I couldn’t understand why they were set so far in.  Once I started seaming I could see the logic; if I were to knit this again, I would follow those instructions exactly.)

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However, try as I might, I could not get the sleeve seams to look anything but sloppy.  I concentrated really hard and went very slowly, but they just never looked right. The sleeves are knit in reverse stockinette stitch, and for some reason, this makes it absurdly difficult to get a decent seam.  Having piles of hot wool on my lap and sweating in the record heat may have been worth it if the seams were perfect; but it really was a slog when I couldn’t get them right.  In the end, I gave up.  Here is a photo which shows the messy seam:

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Just to be thorough, here is a close-up:

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Aarrgghh!  It looks like a two-year old sewed this seam!  Oh the shame, the shame!

Christmas is soon to be here, and I will be heading to Vancouver in a few weeks.  It is past time to finish this cardigan, so I need to buckle down and get back to work on it.  I have been avoiding it however (and doing a bunch of secret Christmas knitting in the meantime) because of my frustration with the seaming.

Serendipity struck early this week as I was catching up on my blog reading and noticed that the fabulous Leah, of the Fashion: Yarn Style blog, just published a post about the difficulties of using mattress stitch on reverse stockinette.  Leah actually ripped out a reverse stockinette sweater, turned the pieces back to front, and re-seamed it on the stockinette side (thus producing a sweater with a totally different look) because she was so upset with the look of the seam.  You can read the post here.  What really struck me reading this post was the following passage:

“I kept redoing my mattress stitching in efforts to improve this terrible line, because the pattern explicitly called for using the mattress stitch! But no matter how many times I tweaked or pressed the seams, they looked terrible. A wonderful reader has now informed me that the correct way to seam reverse stocking stitch pieces together is to use slip-stitch crochet.”

Can you believe it?  Wow!  Ain’t blogging grand? Thanks to Leah, and her wonderful reader, I can see that the problem isn’t my lack of skill (or at least, not entirely) AND there is a solution to the problem: slip-stitch crochet.

So, dear readers, this leads me to dilemma number 1: should I rip out the sleeve seams and re-do them in slip stitch crochet?  Before answering, I beg you to notice that the seams are done in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, the break-iest yarn on the planet, the yarn that will break if you look at it.  Do I really want to rip that stuff out and try again? Should I give in to my inner perfectionist?  Does anyone ever notice the inside sleeve seam anyway?

Dilemma number 2 concerns buttons.  Just before going to Tucson, I raced to the store to try to purchase buttons.  I went to the John Lewis in Reading and was highly annoyed to discover that my first 6 or 7 choices in buttons were out of stock.  I finally, after much grumbling, picked out the only remaining possibility.

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I initially rejected these buttons because I think they are a bit too too small (also, I was aiming for wooden buttons).  I decided to buy them anyway, just in case I wasn’t able to find a better match later on.  They have since grown on me quite a bit.  In fact, I really like them.  But I still worry that they will be too small.  The button bands will be knit in 2×2 ribbing, the same ribbing as the bottom bands against which they are photographed.  Here is a longer distance shot to give some perspective on the actual size:

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(Note: now that I look at the pattern photo on Ravelry, here, I see that these buttons are the same size as in the pattern photos – 3/4″.  They still look small to me, however, compared to the ribbing.)

So, what do you think of dilemma number 2: should I keep these buttons or go back to square one and shop again?  It is Christmas time and I try to avoid the stores.  I hate crowds.  I like these buttons.  On the other hand, they were about my eighth choice.  I don’t remember the other buttons, but maybe they were much better.  On the other hand, they may still be out of stock: having a second such button-buying experience would lead to more than mere grumbling.  Add in the Christmas crowds, and I may just have a melt-down.

So, dear readers, what do you think?  Should I stick with these buttons or do I brave the shops?  And should I indulge my inner perfectionist and re-do the damn seams???? Inquiring minds want to know!